[skinster]

You mean the virus that has a 99% survival rate?

I've been living as normally as one can expect to given the lockdown, which has included working in a doctor's surgery, seeing my family in a different city and seeing friends regularly in London. If people want to stay locked in, they are welcome to. There are plenty of us who don't want to remain isolated and we ought to be welcome to that too.

[Godstud]

@skinster You are deliberately misrepresenting the threat the virus has, as 1-2% might die from it, but the predominant deaths from it are from people over 55. The death rate if you are over 55 only increases as you get older.

Thailand(population 70M) Covid-19 update:
83 people dead. We had a resurgence at the end of December 2020, but it's now under control and isolated, and it's under 100 daily cases. 25,599 infections, overall, with this last outbreak worse than the initial one in April(where it peaked).

No Covid-19 infection in the province I reside, because of a quick lockdown and provincial travel restrictions that were employed quickly, and without incident.

[Drlee]

Try this Skinster. This is not about you. It is about all of the vulnerable people you might infect because you feel entitled to go to a pub. Really nice of you to play fast and loose with other people's lives.

[Doug64]

So for the usual three stat collections:







The Wuhan virus pandemic has had an extraordinary effect on the usual annual flu season:

Amid COVID-19 pandemic, flu has disappeared in the U.S.

February is usually the peak of flu season, with doctors’ offices and hospitals packed with suffering patients. But not this year.

Flu has virtually disappeared from the U.S., with reports coming in at far lower levels than anything seen in decades.

Experts say that measures put in place to fend off the coronavirus — mask wearing, social distancing and virtual schooling — were a big factor in preventing a “twindemic” of flu and COVID-19. A push to get more people vaccinated against flu probably helped, too, as did fewer people traveling, they say.

Another possible explanation: The coronavirus has essentially muscled aside flu and other bugs that are more common in the fall and winter. Scientists don’t fully understand the mechanism behind that, but it would be consistent with patterns seen when certain flu strains predominate over others, said Dr. Arnold Monto, a flu expert at the University of Michigan.

Nationally, “this is the lowest flu season we’ve had on record,” according to a surveillance system that is about 25 years old, said Lynnette Brammer of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Hospitals say the usual steady stream of flu-stricken patients never materialized.

At Maine Medical Center in Portland, the state’s largest hospital, “I have seen zero documented flu cases this winter,” said Dr. Nate Mick, the head of the emergency department.

Ditto in Oregon’s capital city, where the outpatient respiratory clinics affiliated with Salem Hospital have not seen any confirmed flu cases.

“It’s beautiful,” said the health system’s Dr. Michelle Rasmussen.

The numbers are astonishing considering flu has long been the nation’s biggest infectious disease threat. In recent years, it has been blamed for 600,000 to 800,000 annual hospitalizations and 50,000 to 60,000 deaths.

Across the globe, flu activity has been at very low levels in China, Europe and elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. And that follows reports of little flu in South Africa, Australia and other countries during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter months of May through August.

The story of course has been different with coronavirus, which has killed more than 500,000 people in the United States. COVID-19 cases and deaths reached new heights in December and January, before beginning a recent decline.

Flu-related hospitalizations, however, are a small fraction of where they would stand during even a very mild season, said Brammer, who oversees the CDC’s tracking of the virus.

Flu death data for the whole U.S. population is hard to compile quickly, but CDC officials keep a running count of deaths of children. One pediatric flu death has been reported so far this season, compared with 92 reported at the same point in last year’s flu season.

“Many parents will tell you that this year their kids have been as healthy as they’ve ever been, because they’re not swimming in the germ pool at school or day care the same way they were in prior years,” Mick said.

Some doctors say they have even stopped sending specimens for testing, because they don’t think flu is present. Nevertheless, many labs are using a CDC-developed “multiplex test” that checks specimens for both the coronavirus and flu, Brammer said.

More than 190 million flu vaccine doses were distributed this season, but the number of infections is so low that it’s difficult for CDC to do its annual calculation of how well the vaccine is working, Brammer said. There’s simply not enough data, she said.

That also is challenging the planning of next season’s flu vaccine. Such work usually starts with checking which flu strains are circulating around the world and predicting which of them will likely predominate in the year ahead.

“But there’s not a lot of (flu) viruses to look at,” Brammer said.

And of course, the Democrats are following Rahm Emmanuel's call to never let a serious crisis go to waste. (In the line of any number of others, stretching back to William James in 1906).



GOP rep exposes wasteful spending in Democrats' stimulus bill by proposing $10,000 stimulus checks

Prior to House Democrats passing their massive $1.9 trillion stimulus package early Saturday, Republican Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.) introduced an amendment increasing the stimulus check amount to $10,000 for individuals and $20,000 for married couples.

The proposed amendment was meant to highlight the wasteful spending on items completely unrelated to coronavirus-related relief.

Gosar's amendment proposed eliminating 10 sections from the legislation that used taxpayer money to fund items unrelated to COVID relief.

Specifically, Gosar sought to eliminate spending for:

• Farm loan assistance for socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers
• National Endowment for the Arts
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• Institute of Museum and Library Services
• So-called "Vaccine confidence activities"
• "Global health" initiatives
• Family planning
• Capital investment grants
• National Railroad Passenger Corporation grants
• Special financial assistance program for financially troubled multi-employer plans

The billions of dollars saved by eliminating funding for such non-COVID related items should be given back to struggling Americans in the form of increased stimulus checks, Gosar said.

In fact, Gosar explained on Twitter that "only 9% of Pelosi's $1.9 trillion 'plan' is related to COVID-19."

"I offered an amendment to prioritize $10,000 stimulus checks to Americans most affected by COVID-19 and lockdowns," the Arizona Republican said.

"Instead, Democrats chose foreign aid, Big Tech transit, and Pelosi's political priorities over direct relief to American citizens," he added.

"Governement (sic) ordered the shutdown and broke the back of the economy. Break it, buy it," Gosar said. "Americans need help with car payments, mortgage, rent, and everyday necessities. The people, not government, corporations, or billionaires, need this help."

The amendment was rejected by Democrats, who ultimately passed their stimulus bill.

The $1.9 trillion legislation includes the controversial federal minimum wage hike, which the Senate parliamentarian has already ruled cannot be included in the Senate version of the bill if it should be passed in the upper chamber through the budget reconciliation process.

Two Democrats ultimately crossed party lines and voted against the bill: Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Kurt Schrader (Ore.).

Golden later explained that he voted against the bill because of the wasteful spending unrelated to COVID relief.

"This bill addresses urgent needs, and then buries them under a mountain of unnecessary or untimely spending," Golden said. "In reviewing the bill in its full scope, less than 20 percent of the total spending addresses core COVID challenges that are immediately pressing: funding for vaccine distribution and testing, and emergency federal unemployment programs."

[skinster]

Try this Skinster. This is not about you. It is about all of the vulnerable people you might infect because you feel entitled to go to a pub. Really nice of you to play fast and loose with other people's lives.

Try this Drlee, this is not about you either. A lot of us want to continue to live and don't believe everything the government which lies about 100% of the time, when they suddenly pretend to care about our interests. If you think this is just about going to a pub than you're more of a moron than I could ever guess. This lockdown has shutdown protests, the first in history, that should terrify anyone interested in social justice, your lot excluded obviously since all you do is virtue signal.

I was surprised to hear a liberal co-worker say to me last week "Nobody dies of the flu anymore, eh?". Because most every death is because of covid nowadays, even when it's not. Over 2 million people have missed out on cancer screenings in the last year. Domestic violence, that which can be measured, has shot through all roofs, the figures of violence here are shocking those who deal with it. Depression too, that which is being reported. Over 200K health-care workers (like me, please send claps) have refused to take the vaccine not because we don't care, but because we don't believe everything we read.

I'm sick of the liberals who try to guilt-trip you on this front while only EVER sharing how this is a threat to them. Talk about exposing your selfishness. Most people are suffering under lockdown, including OAPs and terminal patients. The wife who treats the latter group has been disgusted throughout because of the restrictions placed on her patients where meeting with family is not allowed, something speeding up those deaths. I was surprised that the wife had more anger at lockdown than me at the time, admittedly I was enjoying the system looking like it was falling further.

So a hearty fuck you to all the people who think I don't give a fuck, yes, I do, just not for myself. If you think swanning around in a mask and isolating yourself as though that's optional for everyone, is the answer to all of this, you're beyond clueless. Must be nice for you Drlee to have the healthcare and likely already-paid house etc. to survive these conditions. What about all those fighting evictions today? Students whose debts continues without a proper year's teaching? I could go on...

[Drlee]

Sorry Skinster. You sound like a Trump rally. Your idiotic anti-scientific crap will not fly here. Why don't you tell us how illegals are taking your jobs and climate change is a hoax while you are on your roll.

Get a grip. 500,000 people dead and you are worried about whether you will have a date on Friday.

Must be nice for you Drlee to have the healthcare and likely already-paid house etc.

Yea. It is a fucking walk in the park. I just love leaving my paid for house to get face to face with Covid positive people who are coming to see me because some 20 something just had to go out on Saturday night. Yea you entitled little......This is all about my income and mortgage. And not 500,000 dead people and all of the crushed survivors.

There is a 50% chance you will display some maturity someday.

[Doug64]

Pew Research has done a poll of people's views on reopening schools, worth taking a look at.

Also, a look at how Florida and California compare.

But bigger, I think, is an illustration simultaneously of how little the Biden administration actually cares about preventing the spread of the Wuhan virus and controlling our borders.

'Pandemic of people': Border catch-and-release risks spread of COVID-19

Hundreds of illegal immigrants were nabbed at the border and then almost immediately released into Texas’ Val Verde County last week — in some cases dropped off along a roadside — with no coronavirus testing or quarantine restrictions, and only a piece of paper with their court date in hand.

In Yuma, Arizona, migrants caught at the border were turned loose at a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant. In Cochise County, on the other side of the state, 100 migrants were dropped off in a Walmart parking lot.

Even as the Biden administration talks tough on mask mandates and coronavirus precautions, the Homeland Security Department is releasing thousands of people into the country across the southwestern border. Many have traveled thousands of miles over weeks, crowded into vehicles and stash houses, with no thought for masks or social distancing.

Once in the U.S., they are boarding buses and trains. If they have the money, they are boarding airplanes along with the general public and spreading out to neighborhoods across the country.

One sheriff said people released into his county are destined for Florida, California, South Carolina, New York and Houston. Another sheriff lists Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia as destinations he has heard.

“It’s a health pandemic, and now they’re being released into our area. They have no money, they have no vouchers,” said Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels. “Literally, they’re just dropping them in places where they feel they have the best ability to navigate from these border communities deeper into the United States.

“We’re playing the game of uncertainty in our local communities,” he said.

In addition to the catch-and-release policy, Homeland Security is actively inviting another 25,000 migrants into the U.S. after they spent months mired in Mexico under the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols.

Better known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, the MPP made tens of thousands of migrants who showed up at the border and made claims go back and wait in Mexico until their immigration court dates. The Biden team has called that policy inhumane. On Feb. 19, it began bringing in 25,000 people with active cases.

Homeland Security says those coming under the MPP umbrella have been tested for COVID-19 in Mexico and are required to wear face masks while in-processing.

“In the locations where processing for this MPP population is unfolding and about to begin, DHS has coordinated both nationally and locally with facilitating organizations supporting the triage and pre-screening in Mexico, as well as with public entities and nonprofit organizations on the U.S. side,” Homeland Security said.

Local health and law enforcement officials question the accuracy of Mexico’s testing, wonder whether a second test will be required once the migrants are in the U.S. and doubt anyone will enforce the seven-day quarantine that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention directs for all new arrivals in the U.S.

That’s just the MPP releases.

The other migrants, the catch-and-release newcomers showing up at the border who weren’t part of MPP, aren’t required to show any testing before they are sent into communities, the border sheriffs said.

“They’re not doing a COVID test because they’re only there for a day and a half at the most, for custody and observation,” said Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot. “You don’t have any of the rules that have been passed down through our federal government being followed at all in this case.”

The sheriffs say rapid testing would at least mitigate some of their concerns.

“I think they ought to be tested as they’re apprehended or turning themselves in,” said Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez in Val Verde County, where an average of about 40 migrants a day are turned loose.

There is also a sense among some of the sheriffs that the administration might not want to know the results of testing.

None of the key sending countries — Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Cuba and Haiti — has a reported per capita infection rate anywhere near the U.S. rate. Haiti remains stunningly low in reported cases.

But those countries have not reported the kind of improvement in other parts of the U.S. in recent weeks. Cuba in particular is facing an acute surge of COVID-19 cases.

Sheriff Wilmot said it’s something folks far from the border should be worried about.

“These individuals aren’t staying on the border. They’re traveling to the interior of the United States, and there is no response from DHS on how they’re going to adequately monitor any of these individuals to ensure they’ve done a 14-day self-isolation.”

Local officials say they are getting little information from Homeland Security on precautions for the MPP releases.

“DHS will not let anybody in law enforcement or public health know where are these facilities, in what states, how is it being monitored or are you coordinating with local health departments,” Sheriff Wilmot said.

Maj. Gen. Michael T. McGuire, Arizona’s adjutant general and director of its Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, said the Biden administration was in the middle of “an uninformed, uncoordinated rush to implement sweeping immigration policy changes without proper regard for the health and safety of Arizonans.”

“I am deeply concerned such action will exacerbate an already complex public health emergency,” he wrote to Homeland Security. He begged for coordination to begin.

Homeland Security did not address questions from The Washington Times about Gen. McGuire’s request for cooperation.

Mini-caravans

The chaos on the border contrasts with public pronunciations of the Biden team.

At the White House last week, presidential press secretary Jen Psaki rebuffed the invitation of a reporter to label the situation “a crisis.”

On Friday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken took a “virtual” tour of a border port of entry in El Paso, Texas, and suggested that newly arrived illegal immigrants would be rejected.

“To anyone thinking about undertaking that journey, our message is: Don’t do it. We are strictly enforcing our immigration laws and our border security measures,” he said. “The border is closed to irregular migration.”

It is tough to square that firm declaration with what local officials say they are seeing.

Border Patrol agents are once again reporting large groups of family units: parents traveling with their children, believing that having the youngsters in tow will make it more likely that they are caught and released. Sheriffs say that’s exactly what is happening.

A group of more than 100 people, mostly families and unaccompanied juveniles from Central America and Cuba, was nabbed near Mission, Texas, on Tuesday. A day later, agents in the same area nabbed another group of 130.

Those kinds of mini-caravans were a key symptom of the 2018 and 2019 border surge.

Up the Rio Grande, in Val Verde County, Sheriff Martinez said they are also seeing family units.

He said he expects the numbers to rise as more people in Latin America and the Caribbean get word of the releases and decide to make the trip themselves.

“It’s going to be a vicious cycle of processing and releasing,” he said.

In Yuma, Sheriff Wilmot said migrant apprehensions “are going up each and every day.”

Sheriff A.J. Louderback in Jackson County, Texas, said the Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley sector, one of nine sectors along the U.S.-Mexico line, is reporting 1,000 people a day attempting to enter without authorization.

Some are shepherded to Catholic Charities in McAllen for COVID-19 testing, the sheriff said.

The city of McAllen is footing the bill for hotel rooms for some of the migrants, he said. Others are quickly shipped out of the region by nonprofit groups.

Brownsville, which said migrants were starting to be released under “catch-and-release” policies in late January, ran out of tests on Jan. 31 and didn’t get more for a week, according to KHOU, a Houston television station.

Some other regions just don’t have the kinds of resources or nonprofits needed to handle the surge.

In Yuma, Mayor Douglas J. Nicholls told government officials that they are at a loss about what to do. About 240 migrants were released into Yuma County from Feb. 15 through Feb. 25.

“We currently do not have a process or system set up to address needs as people are being released,” the mayor said in an email to the region’s state and federal lawmakers. “After speaking with our NGOs and local churches, there is not capacity to adequately address the needs except for an occasional assistance to a family.”

The Washington Times tracks smuggling cases along the border, and the latest data shows $8,000 is now the standard payment for many of the migrants from Mexico and Central America, though some pay quite a bit more.

Sheriff Louderback said that cash is going straight to the cartels that control the smuggling routes into the U.S.

“From my perspective, and many of the sheriffs here, it’s about the large numbers of people that are being brought into the state,” Sheriff Louderback said. “The Biden administration is creating a pandemic of people here.”

[Drlee]

The entire concept of "catch and release" is absurd. If they are entering illegally they should be deported. That is not very hard to understand.

Asylum seekers is a different thing but if someone is apprehended entering illegally or here illegally, and has been here less than three years, home they go.

[Doug64]

@Drlee, I'll agree on the ludicrousness of catch-and-release, IMHO anyone in the country illegally that wasn't brought here as a minor should be sent home regardless of how long they've been here. (Though I might draw the line for someone that's been here most of their life and is now retired--after a point strict enforcement gets ludicrous, too.) But the reason the article is here is because not only have they restarted catch-and-release, but for many illegal migrants they are trusting less than reliable tests for the Wuhan virus while the rest they aren't bothering to test at all. Among other things, the Biden administration is giving Republicans the perfect opportunity to blame them for outbreaks that might happen in Texas--and elsewhere. The Republicans' coming accusations might even be true.

[Rancid]

J&J vaccine starts getting distributed tomorrow.

[skinster]

Sorry Skinster. You sound like a Trump rally. Your idiotic anti-scientific crap will not fly here.

Which anti-scientific crap, doctor?

Why don't you tell us how illegals are taking your jobs and climate change is a hoax while you are on your roll.

First of all, I'd never refer to any group as "illegals". What is this?

Get a grip. 500,000 people dead and you are worried about whether you will have a date on Friday.

Citation needed for the various claims here.

Yea. It is a fucking walk in the park. I just love leaving my paid for house to get face to face with Covid positive people who are coming to see me because some 20 something just had to go out on Saturday night. Yea you entitled little......This is all about my income and mortgage. And not 500,000 dead people and all of the crushed survivors.

Lol that you think I'm 20-something and that I don't deal with sick people every day I go into work.

Not sure which 500K you're referring to, do you mean some of the people who've been living this life and worse in Palestine over the last 5 decades?

There is a 50% chance you will display some maturity someday.

Old dudes acting like they deserve respect, and that's amusing.

[Rich]

I feel the time has come to raise the demand for Apartheid!

Now they're working up a hysteria about the Senna variant. Apparently it came out of Brazil and spreads with unbelievable speed. This is never going to end. Even if the China2019 virus was eliminated it will be something else. They'll want lockdowns for flu next. I mean why not, every life is sacred isn't it. The lockdown Liberals claim that lockdowns have eradicated flu this season, although some think that they've just renamed it. I don't know, but what I do know is the lockdown liberals have been lying though their teeth since this began. Masks are bad, no masks are good. Just wait for the vaccine and we can return to normal, then as soon as the vaccines arrive, vaccines don't make you safe. There was the "scientists" lying phony predictions, that have been proved wrong time and time again.

I don't want to share a society with you any longer. I want to live in a community based on health not sickness. Someone in my house got ill and tested positive for Covid a few weeks back. It has to be said he's the only one of us who could be described as obese (although not seriously). He had the equivalent of a mild flu. No one else showed any symptoms at all, one person didn't even find out he'd tested positive until a few weeks after. You love it, your lockdowns, your social distancing, your zoom meetings, your vaccines, your PCR tests. I don't. I want none of it.

I have no desire to deny you the opportunity to live in a society centred on sickness. It seems to give you meaning. Perhaps the lockdown assuages your "White guilt". Perhaps you see lockdown as a mea culpa for "European Imperialism". Perhaps that why you're having such difficulty selling the new zoom vaccine lifestyle amongst people of African and South Asian heritage. I'm easy going, I'm happy for people in my community to lockdown. I don't mind if they want to take multiple vaccines, You can take a PCR test, morning, noon and night for all I care, just as long as you don't start trying to guilt trip that crap on others.

[Rancid]

Texas has lifted the statewide mask mandate. I still intend to use a mask, at least until more vaccines are distributed.

I thought the anti-maskers were saying they would never lift it....

[Pants-of-dog]

I think a UBI would address a lot of the economic problems associated with the pandemic, but more importantly, I think it would give people the financial freedom to deal with a lot of the other problems that have come with this pandemic, like a rise in family violence, more mental health problems, and even staying in shape.

[skinster]

Has Texas fully opened up?

[B0ycey]

Has Texas fully opened up?

Every cloud. America now has statistical tracker.

[skinster]

I really do not enjoy the masks. I don't mind them on others (sometimes it's funny actually) but I mean I just don't like the feeling of not being able to breath freely. I only have to wear them at work though. Everywhere else I use my exemption badge that I got from The Welcome Collection opposite Euston station.

[B0ycey]

I really do not enjoy the masks. I don't mind them on others (sometimes it's funny actually) but I mean I just don't like the feeling of not being able to breath freely. I only have to wear them at work though. Everywhere else I use my exemption badge that I got from The Welcome Collection opposite Euston station.

The Texas stats are like crazy mad. I can't believe what I hear because this has got to be the biggest heil Mary yet. But I am wondering if this was heading down anyway. So we will soon see what masks are worth. Because if the figures start to head down, especially now their cold snap is over, we can track that to other states with strict restrictions.

[Rancid]

Correction in my previous post. The mask mandate, and business restrictions will lift on March 10. Today, they simply made the announcement.

[Doug64]

@Rancid, March 2nd is Texas Independence Day, a public holiday in Texas, commemorating the adoption of the Texas Declaration of Independence this date in 1836. So yeah, I can see why the governor made the announcement today.